


Cold Perfection

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-02
Updated: 2006-03-02
Packaged: 2018-08-15 23:58:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8078878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Malcolm's note to Jon.  (10/07/2003)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: This is my first story in a loooong time. So any and all criticism and feedback would be appreciated. Also this is kinda an entirely wrong version of the Yeats poetry request, sorry but his poetry doesn't really lend itself to happy bunnies.  


* * *

_I sing what was lost and dread what was won,_  
I walk in a battle fought over again,  
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;   
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,   
They always beat on the same small stone. 

\--William Butler Yeats

____________________________________

Memo to Captain Archer  
Re: Confidential  
From: Malcolm Reed

I'm happy now. 

I used to be sad for a long time. 

When I was on earth, or at least on this ship for the first part of the mission I would be sad for a while and then it would go away. 

Not anymore. Now I have varying degrees of this "sadness." Some days it's only a slight graying around the edges of my world and maybe a tiny dragging of my feet as I walk to my station. This is my good day. Other days it's a battle to get out of bed and I spend most of my time in the armory fantasizing about how a phase pistol would feel against my head. I wondered if the barrel would be cold at first or if it would feel like it belonged there nestled against my temple, caressing my skin with its cold perfection. It seems so perfect, so seductive to me, the only thing that was keeping me from falling was the fact that I was here to protect the crew. Trip is wrong, at least for me, when he said that this mission seems like a one-way ticket. I always knew that it was a one-way ticket for me, I was not going to make it. From the start I could feel the Expanse clawing at my mind, already searching for a foothold so that it could take root in my psyche. My greatest fear was that it already had made its way into my head and that all I saw and felt was tainted by its evil. It wasn't me that it happened to though, was it? 

This section has wrought many horrible things upon us, but I will never forget that out of the section of space came the greatest thing of my life, our love. It was beautiful wasn't it? I felt like I had been found, like the answers were there for the taking, like we could conquer anything that came our way, the Xindi were no match for the power you and I wielded. I guess I finally believed that love could conquer all. That our love could succeed. 

Our love. The Expanse gave it and took it away when I needed it the most. I am amazed that I have lasted so long after. I faced and fought against the glacier that has come over your eyes. I waited while you plotted of revenge with Trip. I forgave you when you yelled at me in front of the crew. I pretended to understand when you used me and then laughed as you walked away, leaving me to clean up and turn to Porthos for the affection I wanted. Needed. I even pressed the button that destroyed millions of life forms without trying to understand. I helped disable their few surviving ship and watched you and Trip kill them slowly, painfully, letting them think they had a chance to survive up to the very end, laughing as you did it. 

I knew I had lost you when you sacrificed our soldiers for a chance to kill more Xindi and I saw you and Trip in the lounge celebrating your success. I realized then what I had been denying for months. My captain and best friend were dead and had been for a long time. 

"Computer pause." Malcolm ran tired hands down his face, feeling the new scars that the Expanse had marked on him. He picked up the phase pistol on the desk of his quarters. 

They were two days from Earth. 

"I thought I could make it, I really could, God knows I tried," he said, eyes on the ceiling of his quarters. He had protected the Enterprise through it all, he had committed genocide on a species they hadn't even met. He had remained the professional through it all. 

He couldn't face the celebrations when they arrived on Earth, the promotions and parties. 

"Computer Send" 

"It feels like cold perfection." 

~the end~


End file.
